Olga Preobrajenska (February 2, 1871 - December 27, 1962)

Olga was probably the best loved ballerina of the Russian Imperial Ballet. Olga was born in Saint Petersburg. In 1879, she joined the Imperial Ballet School, where her teachers were Nicholas Legat, Enrico Cecchetti, and Christian Johansson. After 10 years of intensive training, she moved to the Mariinsky Theatre, where she would work for the next quarter a century. In 1900, she earned the title prima ballerina.

After the Russian Revolution, Olga Preobrajenskadedicated her life to teaching new generations of dancers, first in Petrograd, then in Paris from 1918. Every major mid-20th-century Western dancer visited Olga Preobrajenska for lessons. Tamara Toumanova, Margot Fonteyn, Irina Baronova, Gillian Lynne and Vladimir Dokoudovsky were among the many dancers she coached, and through her students, the Preobrajenska method was soon disseminated in some of the top ballet academies of Europe and New York. The Preobrajenska Method emphasized purity and elegance of movement.

Olga Preobrajenska Video

Tamara Karsavina (March 10, 1885 – May 26, 1978)

Tamara Karsavina was a Principal Artist of the Imperial Russian Ballet and later Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. After graduating from the Imperial Ballet School, she was a leading ballerina of Tsar's Imperial Ballet, dancing the whole of the Marius Petipa repertory. Her most famous roles were Lise in La Fille Mal Gardée, Medora in Le Corsaire, and the Tsar Maiden in The Little Humpbacked Horse.

Tamara married a British diplomat in 1917, and moved outside of London. After settling in Hampstead, England, Karsavina began teaching ballet professionally and would become recognised as one of the founders of modern British ballet. She assisted in the establishment of The Royal Ballet and was a founder member of the Royal Academy of Dance, which is now the world's largest dance teaching organization.

Tamara also coached Margot Fonteyn. Her writings include articles on technique for the journal Dancing Times, her autobiography Theatre Street (1930), and the text Classical Ballet: The Flow of Movement (1962).

In the 1920s, Vera Karalli taught dance in Kaunas, Lithuania and from 1930 until 1935 she was the ballet mistress of the Romanian Opera in the capital city of Bucharest. From 1938 until 1941, Vera Karalli lived in Paris, France. Later, Vera settled in Vienna, Austria and taught ballet there until her death.

Video of Vera Karalli

Adolph Bolm (September 25, 1884 – April 16, 1951)

Adolph Bolm was a student at the Imperial School in St. Petersburg, Russia. Bolm joined the Corps de Ballet of the Maryinsky Theater in 1903. From 1908 to 1909, he partnered legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova. He joinedDiaghilev's Ballets Russes for their 1909 Paris season as a leading dancer.Bolm was an outstanding character dancer and scored great successes as the chief warrior in Mikhail Fokine'sPolovtsian Dances and Pierrot in hisLe Carnaval. He did not join the Ballets Russes on their 1910 tour, but in 1911 he left the Maryinsky to become a regular member of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

After the company's second half of the American tour in the Fall of 1916, he decided to stay in the United States. In 1918, he was the choreographer for the New York Metropolitan Opera and the Chicago Civic Opera in 1920. Adolph Bolm toured South America in 1928 and took up residence in Hollywood where he choreographed many movies. He was the guest choreographer for the first season of the San Francisco Ballet in 1933.In 1940, Adolph Bolm choreographed Peter and the Wolf for Ballet Theatre in New York City.

Bolm passed away on April 16, 1951 in Hollywood California.

Ida Rubinstein(October 5, 1885 - September 20, 1960)

Born into a wealthy Jewish family but sadly orphaned at an early age. Ida had, by the standard of Russian ballet, little formal training until she was under the private tutelage of Mikhail Fokine. In 1909, Diaghilev hired her to dacne with his Ballets Russes and she danced the title role of "Cléopâtre" in the innaugural Paris season. The costumes were designed by Leon Bakst, and the finale inspired Kees van Dongen's Souvenir of the Russian Opera Season 1909.

Ida Rubinstein danced with Diaghilev's Ballet Russe again in the 1910 season, performing in Scheherazade. The ballet is based on the story of the Thousand and One Nights, choreographed by Fokine and written by him and Léon Bakst.

In 1911, she performed in Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien. Gabriele d'Annunzio wrote the part for her and it was scored by Claude Debussy. This was both a triumph for its stylized modernism and a scandal; the Archbishop of Paris requested Catholics not attend because St. Sebastian was being played by a woman and a Jew.

Video of Ida Rubinstein

Felia Doubrovska(February 13, 1896 – September 18, 1981)

Felia Doubrovska was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.She trained at the Imperial Ballet School and was accepted into the Maryinsky Ballet in 1913. She joined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1920, creating roles in Bronislava Nijinska's Les Noces in 1923, Balanchine's Apollon Musagète, and Prodigal Son in 1928 and 1929. Felia danced with Serge Diaghilev during the final 1929 tour.

Felia married acclaimed Russian dancer, Pierre Vladimiroff in 1921. They moved to the United States in 1934.Felia was guest ballerina with Col. de Basil's Ballet Russe in 1937 and later joined the ballet at New York's Metropolitan Opera from 1938 to 1939.

Felia retired from performing and became a distinguished teacher at the School of American Ballet, until her death at the age of 84. Felia died September 18, 1981 in New York City.

Video of Felia Doubrovska

Lydia Lopokova, Baroness Keynes (October 21, 1892 - June 8, 1981)

Lydia Lopokova was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. All of her siblings became ballet dancers, and one of them, Fyodor Lopukhov, was a chief choreographer of the Mariinsky Theatre from 1922-1935 and 1951-1956.

Lydia trained at the Imperial Ballet School. She left Russia in 1910, joining the Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. She stayed with the ballet briefly, leaving for the United States after the summer tour. She rejoined Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1916, dancing with her former partner Vaslav Nijinsky, in New York and later in London. She first came to the attention of Londoners in The Good-Humoured Ladies in 1918, and followed this with a raucous performance with Léonide Massine in the Can-Can of La Boutique Fantasque.

When her marriage to the company's business manager, Randolfo Barrochi, broke down in 1919, the dancer abruptly disappeared, but she decided to rejoin the Diaghilev for the second time in 1921, when she danced the Lilac Fairy and Princess Aurora in 'The Sleeping Princess'. During these years she became a friend of Stravinsky, and of Picasso, who drew her many times.

Lydia was known also as Lady Keynes, the wife of the economistJohn Maynard Keynes. In 1933, Lydia danced her last ballet role, as Swanilda in Coppélia, for the new Vic-Wells Ballet.

Lydia Sokolova (Hilda Munnings)(March 4, 1896 – February 5, 1974)

Lydia Sokolova was Diaghilev’s first English ballerina.Born Hilda Munnings, she trained at London’s Stedman Ballet Academy.She joined Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1913 and remained there until his death in 1929. Her most famous role was Chosen Maiden(photo right) from Leonide Massine’s revival of Le Sacre de Printemps in 1920. Lydia Sokolova also danced the lead in Massine's Le Tricorne. After Diaghilev’s death, Lydia danced with Leon Woizikowski's Ballet Russe company in 1935. Later, Lydia Sokolova returned to England to teach, coach, work on choreography and occasionally perform.

Her last performance was in 1962 when she danced in the Covent Garden Royal Ballet performance of Massine's The Good-Humoured Ladies.

Mikhail Mordkin (December 9, 1880 - July 5, 1944)

Mikhail Mordkin was one of two of the male stars of Diaghilev's Ballets Russesin 1909.Mordkin was trained at the Bolshoi, in Moscow, graduating from the Bolshoi Ballet School in 1899.In the same year he was appointed Ballet Master.

Mikhail Mordkin was among the first Russian dancers to perform outside Russia. At the invitation of Kaiser Wilhelm he organized a short season in Berlin in the summer of 1908, even before Diaghilev's company opened its first season in Paris.

He joined Diaghilev for the 1909 Paris season as a leading dancer, ranking above Nijinsky. On the opening night of Ballets Russes in Paris in, Mordkin danced the leading role in Michael Fokine's Le Pavillon d'Armide. After the first season, he remained in Paris to dance with Anna Pavlovagoing on to form his own company, All Star Imperial Russian Ballet, which toured America in 1911 and 1912. Mikhail Mordkin returned to the Bolshoi and was appointed its director in 1917.

He left Russia after the October Revolution, first working in Lithuania, and finally settling in the United States in 1924. He founded the Mordkin Balletin 1926, but after a European tour the company disbanded in the same year.

From among his students in America, he formed a new Mordkin Ballet in 1937, now American Ballet Theatre. His student, Lucia Chase, helped to initially finance the company and after the first season, she took over the management from Mordkin.

Video of Mikhail Mordkin

Olga Stepanovna Khokhlova (June 17, 1891 – February 11, 1954)

Olga was a Ukrainian-Russian dancer, better known as the first wife of Pablo Picasso and the mother of his son, Paulo.Olga wanted to be a ballerina from the time she visited France and saw Madame Shroessont perform.

She became a member of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. On May 18, 1917 Olga danced in Parade, on its first night at the Théâtre du Châtelet - a ballet by Sergei Diaghilev, Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau. Pablo Picasso had designed the costumes and set for this ballet. Olga then left the Balelts Russes, which toured South America, to stay with Picasso in Barcelona, Spain. Later Olga and Picasso returned to Paris, where they lived together on the Rue La Boétie.

Olga married Picasso on June 18, 1918, in a Russian Orthodox church at the Rue Daru. Jean Cocteau and Max Jacob were witnesses to the marriage. In July 1919, Picasso and Olga went to London for the performance of Le Tricorne.Picasso had designed the costumes and scenery. The ballet was also performed at the Alhambra in Spain, and was a great success at the Paris Opera in 1919.

Olga was legally married to Picasso until her death from cancer in Cannes, France in 1954.

Lubov Egorova (August 8, 1880 - August 18, 1972)

Lubov ubov Egorova was born in St. Petersberg on August 8th, 1880. She graduated from the Imperial Ballet Academy in 1898, the same year as her classmate Mikhail Fokine.After graduation she joined the Maryinsky Theatre.After Nicolas Legat succeeded Marius Petipa, he used Lobov as Myrtha in Giselle. She gave her farewell performance at the Mariinsky Theatre 22 January 1917 in Swan Lake. She received great praise for the role and her performance caught the attention of Diaghilev.

In 1918, Diaghilev brought her to Paris to dance Princess Florine in Ballets Russes The Sleeping Beauty. There, Lubov had the chance to be partnered by Vaslav Nijinsky.She is noted to have been overwhelmed by his artistry.Then in 1921, she danced Aurora in Diaghilev’s famous Sleeping Princess production in London. Her most important roles were the title role in Petipa's Blue Dahlia 1905, Myrtha in Giselle 1907, the title role in Raymonda 1910, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty 1911, Odette-Odile in Swan Lake 1913 and title role in Giselle 1914. She also danced Kitri in Don Quixote, the title role in Laurencia and Auspicia in Pharao’s Daughter.

Lubov married Prince Troubetsky, becoming Princess Nikita Troubetzkoyand began teaching ballet. She was a influential teacher in Paris 1923-1968, among her pupils where Serge Lifar and Anton Dolin. In 1937, she founded a small company called Ballets de la Jeunesse. In 1964, she was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des arts et lettres.